


Dust

by OftheSea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Wolfstar - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era, first wizarding war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OftheSea/pseuds/OftheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mirror is in pieces, the image of a young man— too young to be so weathered— is reflected in fragments. His hands grip at the sink’s edge, his bloody palms staining the white ceramic bowl. His breathing is heavy, too labored. He bares a great burden, a weight too heavy for his shoulders alone. He has been scarred, this boy. He has been fooled and abandoned and betrayed. He has been left standing in the shadow of love, left to shiver and mourn and disintegrate. This boy is Remus Lupin, and he is breaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust

Dust. The apartment was covered in it. The counters, the tables, the picture frames-everything. The milk in the door of the fridge was sour, the grapes in the crisper shriveled, and the family size bag of lays in the cabinet were stale and molding. The fragments of shattered plates and mugs lay in the sink basin, drops of blood dried on their surface. The furniture is in a similar state of disarray, the table is flipped on its side and the large burgundy armchair sports long, angry tears  in its back. The bedroom is a tornado of shards of broken vinyl, drawers and dressers worth of clothing strewn on the floor, and the bed is stripped of its sheets and comforter. They now lie in the fire place. The door to the adjoining bathroom is askew, bloody handprints streaked across its surface. The mirror is in pieces, the image of a young man— too young to be so weathered— is reflected in fragments. His hands grip at the sink’s edge, his bloody palms staining the white ceramic bowl. His breathing is heavy, too labored. He bares a great burden, a weight too heavy for his shoulders alone. He has been scarred, this boy. He has been fooled and abandoned and betrayed. He has been left standing in the shadow of love, left to shiver and mourn and disintegrate. This boy is Remus Lupin, and he is breaking. 

 

**Three years ago**

The apartment is nice. It has vaulted ceilings, a fire place, and a full kitchen. The windows line the wall overlooking the street below and the bedroom is large enough to accommodate a king size bed (not to mention a desk, a closet, and a set of drawers). It’s the kind of apartment you buy when you’re 30: settled with a steady income. It is not the apartment you picture a nineteen year old in, bounding up the stairs in his ripped jeans and leather jacket. It is not the apartment anyone imagines Sirius Black could afford, but with the recent death of his uncle and the subsequent bequeathal of his wealth to one Sirius Black, Sirius was not living a typical life. He could afford the rent comfortably, could afford to buy groceries from places aside from the dollar tree, could even afford his favorite french luxury soaps. Sirius was once again basking in the life he would have known had he not been disinherited. 

Remus was starving. His friends could see it, could see his complexion grow paler and his wrist bones grow more and more prominent beneath his skin. When they went out to eat, he ordered a water and scarfed down the free bread. He ordered nothing, claimed he had something at home. They all knew he was starving. They knew by the way he wouldn’t invite them to his apartment, knew by the way they had reacted when he told them what neighborhood it was in he would never take them. Remus was starving and he would never admit it. 

Sirius asks Remus to move in because he misses sleeping in the same bed every night and he misses the smell of Remus’s tea constantly steeping and he misses stealing remus’s jumpers. He asks Remus to move in because the solitude of his spacious apartment is starting to feel eerie and because he hates cooking for one and because all his music has started sounding sad. He asks Remus to move in because he loves him, but also because Remus is starving, and he would never admit it. 

 

**Two Years Ago**

The flat is mostly empty now. Once in a while it will house the two boys for a single night, a week if they’re lucky, but mostly it is dormant. The war is in full swing. Both sides throw everything they have into the cause, the Order gains new members everyday: fathers and mothers and kids like them, right out of Hogwarts. It is the war that will define not just one generation but several, they know this. They can see the history book chapters in their heads, can taste the champagne of victory. They were all going to be war heroes, they were all going to live. But then they get assigned their first mission and they see the truth that is battle and their faces are splattered with blood and everything reeks of death and they are not all going to live, and if they do they don’t know if they will be able to call it life. 

The five of them stick together as much as possible, request the same missions, spend the night in the same safe houses, even wear the same colored armbands during battle. They tell themselves it’s for visibility but they all know the truth they will not say out loud: it will make it easier to identify their bodies. Remus is allowed to leave during full moon nights, sent to St. Mungo’s to endure his transformations alone in a padded cell. When he returns he is scared and weary and he, for the first time, fits right in. The nights he and Sirius spend together in their flat are quiet. They do not talk about what they have seen, do not rehash the deaths of their classmates or predict the many more to come. They do not look to the past or the future or anything that is not now. They do not talk at all. They just lay under the covers of the bed that now feels foreign to them and hold each other until morning comes. They breathe in the scent of each other’s skin, memorize the lines on each other’s faces, make promises they do not dare to speak aloud. Their vows are in their touch, their secrets in their caress. They make commitments to each other, map out a future neither of them can see through the foggy haze of war, and fall asleep murmuring wishes. When they wake, they do not allow themselves the luxury of lingering in this reality that is no longer theirs. They put on their coats, lock the door behind them, and they go to war. 

 

**One Year Ago**

He is not surprised to learn his old flat was still unoccupied. The windows are jammed and the shower runs cold and the ceilings are terribly water damaged. He does not bother moving his things back in. He did not bring his books, his record player, or his photographs. He left it all with Sirius. This place is not his home. It is the place where he waits. Waits for the war to end, waits for sleep to find him, waits for the truth to be revealed. It is the place he comes to when Sirius's accusations burn too deep, when he is no longer allowed to visit the Potter household, when he hasn’t heard anyone call him Moony in a month. It is the place he moves to when he cannot stand to come home to an apartment that feels more haunted by the ghost of their love, an apartment that now only reminds him of scorn and suspicion and blame. It is the place where he devolved back into a monster, when the eyes of his love diminished him and belittled him and shamed him. It is the place where he used to have a home and now had only fleeting glimpses of a love that was the sun and the stars and kept him company under the moon. 

This place is not his home, it is where he waits to die. 

 

**One day ago**

The news reaches him quickly. His waiting is over. He thinks the truth has been discovered and the nightmare that was the loss of everything that kept him from crumbling was finally over. He had taken mission after mission in hopes that they would all see that _he_ would see that this was his cause this was his fight this was his war and he was going to win it for all of them. He has just returned from a mission when they tell him, shacked up in a dingy safe house that smelled like a culmination of all those who had left it. He had hoped it was Sirius at his door, he always hoped it was Sirius, with an apology on his lips and a hand to slip into his own. It is Mad Eye instead. He steps inside the room that is not really Remus’s but belongs to no one no one stays long enough to have rooms anymore. He steps inside and closes the door and tells him. About Lily and about James and that there is more to say that cannot be said there. He does not offer any apologies or comfort, only facts and instructions and orders. 

The nightmare has only begun. 

Lily and James’s house is still  smoking when he arrives, chunks of debris scattered around the lawn. The Order had already extracted the bodies, already made the proper arrangements for Harry. Harry is alive he is alive alive alive alive. Remus repeats it again and again and it does nothing to keep him from crumbling. 

He asks about Sirius and Peter. Dumbledore’s office is in a state of chaos, informants rush in and out and order members sit around the room in wait. They have varying accounts, they’ll know more soon. Sirius had been there though, he knows this. He had given Hagrid Elvendork, had given him a means to get Harry to safety. He had also seen it though, had seen James’s body, had seen his brother among the wreckage. Remus knows this. No one says so, but he knows. Knows Sirius. He knows he must have gone to seek something, revenge or righteousness or justice. Something stupid and noble like that. Remus knows Sirius and he knows he needs him now. He does not move, just waits. 

When the news comes he laughs. Remus laughs because it is so preposterous and how funny it is you have chosen now to play a joke. Because he knows Sirius. He knows what he looks like when he is having a bad dream and the face he makes when he is hungry. He knows that he is a nervous cleaner and that he hates lemons and that he saves the red M&M to eat last and that he can never watch nature documentaries because he feels bad for the gazelles. He knows what he is capable of. And this is not within his capabilities. But they insist. They tell him again and again yes, it is true. He did this he killed them he is the reason they are dead. And Remus laughs harder and harder and his stomach is cramping and his eyes are watering and maybe he isn't laughing anymore. They tell him he is going to Azkaban. He is quiet. He looks at them and they are not joking they were never joking but how could they be telling the truth? He knows Sirius Black. He knows him on good days and bad days and all the days you forget in between because they're just days you’ll have more there’ll always be more won’t there? He knows very little it seems, but he knows Sirius Black. At least he thought he did. 

 

**Today**

The word has spread. The victory they had all so eagerly grasped at is at hand. Voldemort is dead, good has triumphed and all is right again. The nightmare is over. 

Remus walks down the street, numb. Celebration surrounds him. Fireworks are shot up into the air and music thrums through the streets and Remus feels nothing. He reaches the flat before he even knew this is where he was walking. He unlocks the door with the spare key in the pot by the door. The rooms moan, stale air whistles through their bones. There is a layer of dust coating everything. 

The light on the answering machine blinks. Sirius had begged Remus to install it for him, was fascinated by the whole idea. Remus presses the play button. 

“Hey Pads, it’s James. This is how this thing works right lil? Just talk into it? Bloody hell, these muggle contraptions are insane. Anyway, just calling to check up on you, haven't seen you in a few days. Wanted to see if you wanted to come over for Halloween this year, Lils bought this adorable ghost onesie for Harry. We’re gonna watch shit horror films and eat all the candy we said we would give to children (that’s not happening). Anyway, give us a call when you can. Love you bro.” Beep. End of message. 

The dish next to Remus collides with the wall. The cup next. He’s up and moving towards the china cabinet. The plates go first. They fly across the room like disks and chip the paint on the wall upon impact. The glasses come next. Martini, shot, milk glasses. All of it. Everything shatters. Remus is out of breakables but he is still not satisfied. He moves to the living room and he is flipping the table and. He reaches for a shard of glass from the floor and grips it in his right hand. He drags it down the chair’s back rest. The glass digs into his palm and he is bleeding he knows it but what’s another scar he wants to remember tonight wants to remember what it felt like when it all fell apart. The bedroom is next and the bed sheets are still rumpled from the last time they lied there together. Remus is ripping off the sheets and the comforter too and the blood is staining them but it doesn't matter it'll all burn the same. He throws them in the fire pit and looks for a match. He uproots drawers and scavenges through cabinets nothing there are none he can’t find a single one fuck fuck FUCK. Remus moves to the bathroom maybe there’s some in there Sirius always liked smoking in the bathroom- the mirror is shattered. Remus is not expecting it. He watches his reflection, trapped in a glass spiderweb. His hands grip at the edge of the sink, his search forgotten. He stares at the shattered image, wonders why it was Sirius could no longer stand the sight of himself. The celebration continues outside. People cheer and bands play and the world moves forward, into an era of long awaited peace. But Remus Lupin stays. He stays and he waits. 

Waits for the pieces to fall back into place.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler alert: the pieces do not in any way fall back into place. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!  
> This is just a way fro me to get out my feelings about Remus Lupin during and after the first wizarding war. I have a lot.  
> My tumblr is firefranky.tumblr.com in case you wanna chat to me about all things wolfstar  
> feedback is much appreciated <3


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